The Microscope and Its Meaning

Medicine has, no doubt, always had its icons, symbols we all use and recognize as emblematic of what we do and what we think of our profession. The stethoscope-as-necklace seems to be currently popular, perhaps as a badge of authority to be worn in the medical center parking lot, the local shopping mall, as well as on ward rounds. For an earlier generation, it was certainly the microscope that identified the young physician or medical student with scientific aspirations. On the first day of medical school one acquired an instrument to be lugged around in a wooden box, sometimes of beautiful polished wood, more often of rather rough-hewn appearance. It symbolized the start of a professional life in medicine, first in the study of histology, pathology and microbiology, and later as an essential office tool in medical practice. The microscope was a carefully considered purchase. It was expensive and a life-long investment, the first step in equipping one's future office. As with most icons, this image has become dated: few present-day physicians have need to look through a microscope in their everyday practice. This transient use of the microscope at the beginning of medical education has relegated the microscope to just another bit of furniture to be left behind with the preclinical years. Three recent books about the microscope remind us, however, of some of the reasons behind the past iconic status of this symbol of modern scientific medical knowledge. The Invisible World by Catherine Wilson (Princeton University Press, 1995), The Fabric ofLife by Marian Fournier (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), and The Microscope in the Dutch Republic by Edward G. Ruestow (Cambridge University Press, 1996) are complementary works that trace the history of microscopy in different ways and along different trajectories. Wilson, a professor of philosophy at the University of Alberta, has written a fascinating account of the role of the microscope in the philosophical debates of the 17th century and its importance in advancing the cause of the "mechanical" view of the world. Ruestow, a historian at the University of Colorado, describes, in a rather straight-forward and conventional history, how the invention of the microscope gave new room for investigation of nature and for the interplay of imagination, social conditions, cultural traditions and personal sensibilities. Fournier, from the Museum Boerhaave in The Netherlands, tells a unified account of the goals and efforts of the principal microscopists of the 17th century, and more than the other authors, focuses on the growth of biological thought made possible by the invention of the microscope.